


Oranges on Apple Trees

by lonelywalker



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU following S1, Background Caitlin/Ronnie, Background Iris/Eddie, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry's crazy enough to want to have Eobard's baby. Eobard's crazy enough to figure out a way he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oranges on Apple Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the a-ha song.

Barry had learned pretty quickly to be careful what he said around the genius inventors in his life. Any random sentence beginning with “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” could send Cisco and Eobard scurrying off to the workshop, already throwing out ideas about how the impossible could be made possible, and probably before breakfast. Most of the time it wasn’t so bad. It gave them something to do in between metahuman and multiverse incidents, and Eobard was never cuter than when he was excited about science. But one of these days their enthusiasm was going to blow up the lab. Yet again.

Life had been going well ever since the Singularity, though. There wasn’t a single day Barry didn’t thank some higher power for Eobard deciding to stay in this time. They’d managed to close the Singularity together, although Eo’s powers had flaked out before they made it to safety. Battered by debris, falling a long, long way before Firestorm could catch him, he’d had no healing factor for what Caitlin worried had been far too long. It had been a week before he’d woken up. But it was a week when everything changed.

Barry had spent long nights sitting by his bedside, knowing this was the man who had brutally murdered his mother right in front of him. And yet… The hate he knew he should feel just wouldn’t come. Eobard had also wanted to give him his mom back. He’d _wanted_ to undo the damage. And then Joe had told him about the memories, thoughts, and love the original Eobard had stolen from the real Harrison Wells. Could he really be the same person at all, with someone else in his head? If he still found himself crying over a woman Eobard Thawne had never met, but whom Harrison Wells had loved with all his heart?

“He’s still killed people, Bar,” Joe had reminded him. “He’s not a good man.”

When Eobard’s cracked bones and bruises healed, though, when he finally opened his eyes, Barry found himself hugging him, sobbing for no reason he could really explain. And Eobard hugged him back, held on until Barry, red-faced and embarrassed, was ready to let go.

Amid all the chaos that followed, with Jay Garrick and Zoom, Eobard was always there, fighting alongside Barry like he had for a year as Harrison Wells. Eobard always had his back, even if his powers failed. And maybe the first time was all about adrenaline, about relief that they’d survived, about the joy of victory over impossible odds, but Barry had kissed him desperately, wrenching open Eo’s yellow suit even while Eobard said, “Barry… Are you sure? Don’t do something you’ll regret.” That first time was sweet and brief before they had to get back to the lab. But then, at Eobard’s immense, quiet, isolated house, the second time lasted much, much longer.

The reactions from the others had ranged from confusion to outright fury. But that was two years ago now. Two years of a committed relationship with a man who had devoted most of his life to righting wrongs, including getting Barry’s dad out of prison with the help of a crack legal team that only Harrison Wells could afford. Even though Eobard was still the Reverse Flash, Barry couldn’t help loving him. Trusting him. And gradually, whether they really wanted to or not, the others had started to come around.

He and Eo had talked about children in a vague, maybe-later kind of way when Caitlin and Ronnie’s son Pizza was born (“ _Peter_ ,” Caitlin kept correcting them all). Although Eobard was older, and a lot of Barry’s college friends were settling down as they approached thirty, the effects of the speed force meant that age wasn’t as big a problem as it might’ve been. They had time.

One day, though, Barry spent hours playing with a group of kindergarten kids he’d rescued when their bus overturned, calming them down, waiting with them until their parents could all be contacted. And that was maybe why he started thinking about it semi-seriously. Which was maybe why, one night in bed, his legs spread while Eo fucked him, he found himself saying: “Oh God, deeper… fill me up… knock me up… _harder_ , Eo.”

“Knock you up?” Eo repeated, with that amused half-smile Barry loved so much.

“Yeah… Breed me. Wanna have your baby. Wanna have all your babies.” It wasn’t exactly the first time Barry had babbled during sex without really thinking about what he was saying, and not the first time they’d done some roleplaying either. But it was the first time he’d seen that half-thoughtful, half-excited look of Eo’s in response. The one that meant he was probably about to run off and build a teleporter.

But once they’d come and drifted off to sleep, Barry mostly forgot about it. Except to think about maybe looking into adoption semi-seriously. Getting some pamphlets.

“It’s possible, you know,” Eobard said a few evenings later while they were babysitting the mini Snow-Raymond, which mainly involved stopping him headbutting all the very hard stone surfaces in Eobard’s house.

Barry sped across the floor to steer Pizza away from the fireplace. “What is?”

“Male pregnancy.”

“Oh sure. I mean, I’ve read about trans men doing it. And they can splice two guys’ DNA so a kid can have two fathers…”

Eobard stretched out on the day bed, watching Barry retrieve the toddler’s toy truck. “I meant more along the lines of you carrying our child.”

Barry glanced down at his very flat stomach. His whole six-pack was visible through his tight t-shirt. “You’re kidding. And _I_ was kidding. You’re not supposed to take anything I say seriously when you’re vibrating inside me.”

“Well, as you say, the DNA angle is a piece of cake even by the standards of this barbaric age. And I’m reasonably certain I can grow a womb for you. Your healing factor is what makes it all possible.”

Barry wasn’t sure he could count all the issues he had with those three sentences. But Eobard _was_ a genius with a couple of extra centuries’ worth of medical and scientific knowledge, and Caitlin had once grown an entire dude in an afternoon. Not so long ago, Barry would’ve laughed and forgotten about it, like the time Cisco wondered whether a speedster’s finger might grow back if it was chopped off. But something was different now. Something that made him stop and ask, “You’re serious? You’re really sure you can do this?”

“I will be, before we ever try it. I would never put you in danger, Barry.”

“And you… You want to have a baby with me?”

“Yes,” Eo said. “I do.”

They didn’t tell Joe. They’d pretty much made an art out of not telling Joe. But Eobard consulted in-depth with Cisco and Caitlin, who in turn consulted with their professional colleagues – “on a purely hypothetical basis, of course!” And Barry eventually confessed everything to Iris over coffee.

“Oh my God.” Iris leaned in closer, just in case anyone at Jitters actually heard and took it seriously. “That is absolutely crazy!”

“I know, but- ”

“You should definitely try it.”

“…really?”

“If everyone thinks it’s safe, and you want to do it, then of course. You’d be a great dad, and I know how much you love Eobard. And how else am I going to get a…” Iris counted on her fingers. “Great-great-great-great-great-grandkid?”

Barry frowned, rubbing at his stomach through his t-shirt. “I think you might’ve missed a few greats. But seriously. Can you actually imagine me all, you know…” He made a pregnant belly shape with his hands.

“Aww, you’ll be adorable. And a pregnant man isn’t anywhere near as crazy as someone who can control the weather or run through time. If Caitlin did it, and I’m going to do it _one_ of these days, you’ll do just fine.”

Over the next few months, as Eobard filled Barry in on the theory of it all, and as Barry spent more and more days reading up, getting used to the idea of maybe actually being pregnant, having a baby, he found himself wanting it more and more.

“I feel like we’re actually _trying_ every time we have sex,” he said to Eo one night. It was incredibly erotic to imagine it that way, as though Eo coming in him came with the possibility of so much more, as though things could already be happening in his body, changing him from the inside out. At least they both had speedster stamina, now that Barry could barely spend a moment alone with him without grinding on his lap, pulling off his shirt, begging for Eo to take him right there.

By day he spent more time with Pizza, taking him out to the park and playground, trying to imagine what it would be like to have a little person so totally dependent on him, and whether he could cope with that kind of immense responsibility. But it was also so tempting to think about having a little boy or girl of his own, maybe with Eo’s penetrating blue eyes and unruly hair, yelling “Daddy, Daddy, look!”

“I want this,” he told Eo, after making himself wait until he was really, positively sure. Until his browser history was overflowing with parenting websites and his body was aching for a baby in a way he hadn’t thought was possible without ovaries.

The actual procedure, when the time finally came, was… not as scary or weird as it could’ve been. Barry couldn’t be given any anesthetic, but Eo – after practicing on holograms Cisco had whipped up – was able to carry it out at superspeed. It definitely wasn’t any worse than being turned into a human porcupine by Eiling. And it was thrilling, too, the knowledge that a new life was starting inside him, that every day was going to be another scientific breakthrough, another S.T.A.R. Labs miracle.

For the first couple of months, though, the pregnancy was mainly something Barry saw on Caitlin’s scanners. It was exciting to see the readouts and know that everything was fine, but he didn’t _feel_ any different, with no morning sickness, no fatigue. Eo constantly checked up on him, touched his stomach, whispered to him in bed about how full he was getting. Barry loved it, loved daydreaming about his belly swelling, but it still felt more like roleplay than reality.

And then, one day, he didn’t have abs anymore.

He and Eobard had worked out a deal about his continued superhero work: so long as his tight-fitting leather suit didn’t become so tight-fitting that he couldn’t wear it, he could still go out and stop muggings and rescue people from burning buildings. Which Barry did, stubbornly, even after he started showing. “It’s barely _anything_ ,” he protested while Eo ran his fingers over the bump at night. “You couldn’t tell if I had my clothes on.”

“But you don’t have your clothes on,” Eo pointed out, kissing his belly, unzipping his jeans…

Part of the reason he wanted to continue was that, if the Flash wasn’t out there, the Reverse Flash would have to be. And having to choose between potentially risking their baby and potentially risking Eo wasn’t an easy decision. In the end, though, the suit made it for him. “It’s getting really uncomfortable,” he admitted, easing back into S.T.A.R. Labs sweatpants and t-shirt after taking down some jewel thieves. His hand went so naturally to cup his belly now that it went beyond Thanksgiving-dinner bloat. “And Eo, I think I can… I think I felt the baby move.”

Actually showing, running his hand down what used to be washboard abs and feeling the bulge there, feeling the flutter of movement in his stomach, was scarier than he’d ever imagined. Their baby was growing in him and would keep growing until it was, well, baby-sized. He’d known it all, of course. But actually seeing it, feeling it happening to him…

Eo and Caitlin had worked out some kind of plan with the necessary hormones so that his body could sustain the baby without undergoing all the changes a woman normally would. For one thing, his altered DNA just wouldn’t allow him to store much extra fat, or loosen his ligaments, or widen his hips. But his nipples darkened, his chest becoming a little puffier than normal.

“You’re _sure_ you’re not making me into a woman?” he asked Eo, trying to laugh it off, trying not to think too much about how good it felt now when Eo sucked his nipples. But then Eo sucked his cock too. And Eo started bottoming more than usual, telling Barry how much he loved Barry fucking him, loved Barry’s big thick cock stretching him open. Barry knew exactly what he was doing, but it was still reassuring. Even with an expanding belly and almost-breasts, Barry was still Barry. Still a man. Just not the Flash right now.

So they told Barry’s dads. Finally. Barry thought that Eobard was probably just as scared, if not more, than he was.

Joe looked at them like they were completely crazy, or this was all a massive practical joke, until Barry lifted his shirt and Caitlin showed him the sonograms. “You’re still crazy,” Joe said, even though his voice was full of wonder. “You don’t know what this is going to do to you or the baby. I mean, you have superpowers, both of you. _He_ stole someone else’s body! I…” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and looked at the sonogram again. “…how’s it supposed to come out?”

Henry had something of a similar reaction, except that after the first few angry words he started asking questions about the procedure, about how it was possible, and Barry was left standing there ignored while Caitlin and Eo explained all the details.

“I’m not saying I approve,” Henry said. “But I’m a doctor. You could’ve filled me in a lot earlier. I could’ve helped.”

Barry winced. “I know you’ve never liked Eo, Dad, and I completely understand and respect that. So I thought…”

“This isn’t about liking Eobard. This is about my son having a child. And you should never doubt that I’m always going to do everything I can to protect you.” He reached to feel Barry’s belly, his hand gentle. “Honestly I’d just about given up on having grandkids. And having a son with superspeed and a son-in-law from the future? I should’ve expected this, right?”

After he was forced to stop wearing the suit, it was undeniable how much his belly was growing. Scary, even. He had to get Caitlin to double-check that he wasn’t actually carrying twins. “You’re completely normal,” she told him. “And don’t forget how tall you are and how good your muscle tone is. I popped out a _lot_ more than you.”

While he couldn’t be a superhero, his CSI work was easy enough to continue – hardly anyone ever came up to the lab, and his belly could be disguised under sweatshirts, although his jeans wouldn’t close anymore. He badly wanted to dress normally, just like any of the cops or admins who were pregnant, but there was just no way he could tell Captain Singh or anyone else about his _condition_ without landing himself in international newspapers. One movie night at the lab, while Eo was out being a hero, Cisco put on _Junior_. “Ha ha,” Barry said. But honestly it was as close to an instruction manual as he was going to get.

The fact everything was going so well was just amazing from a medical point of view, once it stopped being so new and scary. Barry would’ve been fascinated by the details if he’d been reading them in a journal. When it was his own body, though, it was hard to see it as a crazy science experiment anymore. It was just what he and Eo had made together, like couples had made together since the beginning of time, and although his body had never been intended to bear a child, it somehow felt completely natural to be doing it.

The sex was as incredible as any he’d ever had since the very first time he and Eo made love. Whatever else the hormones were doing to him, they made him _want_ more than ever, his skin buzzing with energy he couldn’t burn off by running. All his old fears had melted away as he grew to love his changing body. Having Eo’s baby inside him, having Eo hold his belly while they moved together, Eo’s other hand stroking his cock, was maybe the most erotic, intimate thing Barry could imagine. “Look what you did to me,” he murmured as Eo held him on his lap, rubbing oil into his six-month belly. “I’m all yours, Eo.”

One morning, though, he woke to find Eobard looking at him across the pillow, with a troubled expression Barry had more or less expected. Had actually expected would come much sooner. “Hey,” Barry said, reaching across, “everything okay?”

“The baby has good DNA,” Eo replied. He’d obviously prepared some kind of rational argument. “You, the real Harrison Wells… Two of the best, smartest, kindest people who could ever have a child. But if _I_ raise it…”

“Eo…”

“I don’t know what went wrong with me, Bar. How I became the person I became, someone capable of the very worst… I can’t risk turning some innocent child into the same thing.”

Barry smiled. “Do you seriously think I haven’t thought about this?”

It wasn’t often he managed to bring Eobard Thawne, genius among geniuses, up short. “…you have?”

“I didn’t just jump into having a baby with you. I thought of every single bad thing that could possibly happen between now and the time our kid graduates college. I even talked all of them through with Caitlin, and she’s the most cautious person I know.”

Eo shook his head. “We can’t predict everything that might happen.”

“No, but the bottom line is the same. We love each other, and we love this baby, and that’s all anyone can do. Sometimes kids have problems and sometimes they do bad things, but no one’s going to turn into a supervillain just because you used to be a time-traveling bandit. More likely they’ll want to be a cop, or a doctor, or an engineer… Or a princess. Or a dinosaur.”

“Dinosaurs…” Eo said, getting _that_ look again, and Barry poked him.

“Look, everyone freaks out about having kids. But you’re going to be a great dad. It’s _me_ you should be worried about! I’m basically a kid myself. And how dumb am I, that I let my crazy former-supervillain boyfriend stick a baby inside me?”

Eo raised an eyebrow. “Pretty dumb,” he agreed, and kissed Barry lightly. “Well. There’s still that Wells DNA. There’s hope for the kid yet.”

Barry poked him again. Harder.

Even before the third trimester, hiding his pregnancy was getting tough. Plenty of cops had bigger beer bellies than Barry’s baby bump, but there was no way stick-thin Barry could’ve conceivably put on that much weight. While Joe and Eddie covering for him at crime scenes, he relocated his lab work to the Cortex. As long as Singh got all his reports, everything would probably go okay for three months, even if he had to log a bunch of sick days. With the baby growing and moving constantly, squishing all the internal organs that were actually _supposed_ to be inside him, it was often pretty difficult to concentrate on anything. But at least he could get rid of the huge sweaters.

“S.T.A.R. Labs definitely needs maternity wear,” Caitlin said while they monitored police channels at night. “Or paternity wear.”

Barry rubbed at the stripe of uncovered skin between his t-shirt and pants. At least his healing factor meant no stretch marks. Or, at least, none that lasted. “We should’ve just had you grow the baby in a vat overnight.”

“Then how would you get in all this quality bonding time?”

“It feels like my ribs are being torn apart.” Barry tapped the comm. “Eo? Check out the northern warehouse district. We just got a weird call, went to static.”

“On my way.”

Central City had reacted with some confusion to their Flash suddenly wearing yellow and black (Eo had absolutely refused to wear the red), but if he was saving people, no one really cared. At least it had given Iris some new things to write about, seeing as her editor was still demanding at least one Flash article among all the _real_ reporting she did on the city’s social issues.

“Some kind of explosion,” Eo reported back a minute later. “Gideon says it’s probably gas but I’m not sure if there’s a leak. There’s debris everywhere… Should I be looking for survivors?”

Caitlin was working on the other computer. “According to the company that owns that warehouse, there should be one guard…”

“I found him. He’s-”

“Eo?”

“It… wasn’t gas. It’s a metahuman. Barry, whatever you do, don’t come out here.”

Barry was already on his feet. That wasn’t the kind of thing Eo ever led with, because it was the kind of thing that implied he might need help. That he might actually lose. “Eo?!”

Nothing. Barry stabbed at the comm channels. “Eo? Gideon? What’s going on?”

“Police channels are reporting another explosion and a fire. They’re setting up a perimeter…” Caitlin looked up at him. “Barry, he’s right. He’s _really_ right. You can’t go.”

“I can’t leave him.” But the other options weren’t great either. He couldn’t wear his suit. Fighting anyone at all would risk the baby. “It’s not just Eo, Caitlin. Whoever’s out there… If Eo can’t stop them, they could be a threat to all the cops, the whole city…”

“Sit down,” she said, “and tell Joe all that instead of me. I’m calling Cisco.”

Barry punched in Joe’s number. “…why?”

“So he can get in touch with Lisa Snart. Or do you know anyone else with three incredibly powerful weapons lying around?”

Over the past two years, the Rogues had been an ever-present thorn in Barry’s side, but at least they hadn’t killed anyone. And unless he wanted to call directory inquiries for Hartley Rathaway, they really were the only option. If they could get there fast enough.

If Barry couldn’t fight, at least he could run. And if the Snarts and Mick Rory laughed at his disheveled pregnant appearance (which Cisco must’ve spilled the beans about already) they at least shut up when Barry threw them over his shoulder one by one and sped them to the crime scene. He could probably have just stolen the guns, but he wasn’t three people, and he couldn’t risk a fight with the very people he needed to help him.

When he got there, there was still no word from Eo. “His comm’s probably down,” Caitlin said, trying to be reassuring. “You know him. Ronnie threw him off a roof once. He’ll be fine.”

“We don’t know much,” Joe said when Barry zipped into the back of his car. “There’s a huge fire and there have been more small explosions. Can’t risk sending in my guys or the firefighters until we know what’s going on.”

“And you just brought along three more criminals,” Eddie added.

Barry leaned forward, trying to see into the site, praying for some red lightning. “Eo’s in there, Eddie.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just saying. Iris is going to have one hell of a story.”

It was terrifying, watching from the outside, his heart pounding, his body almost vibrating from fear and adrenaline while the baby kicked harder than ever. Until finally, _finally_ , the fire went out and Len Snart’s voice came over the comm Barry had given him. “Chill, Flash. We found your boyfriend.”

Barry sped in there before Joe could tell him not to. The three Rogues were wiping soot and frost off themselves, but otherwise seemed fine. On the ground was a groaning man in a security company uniform, with what looked like a broken leg, and Eo… on his hands and knees, coughing horribly, but very definitely alive. “We found him on top of that guard,” Len said. “But we don’t judge, do we sis? As for the freaky exploding guy, he seems to have freakily exploded for good.”

The guard was swiftly delivered to the nearest paramedics before Barry got down and laid a hand on Eo’s back. “Are you okay?”

“Mostly…” Eo wrenched back his mask. His face was a mess of blood and dirt. “I think the explosion threw me right through a couple of walls. I was trying to protect the guard…” His eyes focused on Barry, on Barry’s half-exposed belly. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Yeah I am. You think we’re going to survive raising this baby if we’re not a team? The Flash needs his Reverse, and this kid needs two dads.”

Barry helped Eo to his feet, throwing Eo’s arm around his shoulders. The way Eo was moving, he probably had more than a couple of broken bones Caitlin would have to reset.

Eo placed a gloved hand on Barry’s stomach and looked uncertainly at the Rogues. “I hope those three aren’t your idea of babysitters.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Lisa said. “I am _great_ with kids.”

The next couple of months passed without another meta appearing, other than someone trying their luck in Starling who Oliver managed to defeat without any problems. Barry’s concerns were much closer to home. “This baby has to come out sometime. I mean, it’s been nine months. There’s only so much bigger I can get.”

“Believe me, you can get a _lot_ bigger,” Caitlin pointed out. “And technically a full-term pregnancy is forty weeks.”

“Thirty-eight,” Eo said. “We know exactly when conception took place.”

Caitlin shrugged. “Either way… another week or two.”

“And then you do the…” Joe made a vibrating hand motion, complete with buzzing sound.

Barry tried his best not to facepalm. “He’s not taking a chainsaw to my stomach, Joe.”

“While _technically_ Eobard could just phase the baby out of Barry… We decided it’s safer just to do a C-section.” Caitlin glared at Eo, in case he was about to object for the fifth time. “Eobard’s powers are unpredictable and I’m more confident Barry can heal from being cut open than a baby can heal from being atomized.”

Barry spent much of that last week or two in bed whenever he didn’t have to do lab work, letting Eo rub and vibrate his aching back – “Why can’t my powers compensate for that too?” – while he re-read all the child-raising manuals. They already had a nursery set up, mostly designed by Caitlin and Iris, with a mural Eo had painted in his spare time. Three walls were pastoral and soothing, with cows grazing in sunny green fields. The other had what was, in Barry’s opinion, far too much red and yellow. But he wasn’t going to start a fight about that.

“I want to get back to being the Flash,” he said, leaning back into Eo. “And sleeping on my stomach and having easier sex.” Not that they hadn’t had as much sex as always in the past couple of months. If anything, Barry’s sex drive had stepped up yet another gear. The positions had just gotten way more awkward. “But I love feeling our baby inside me. Is that crazy?”

“No. I love feeling our baby inside you too.” Eo’s long fingers splayed out over Barry’s belly as it moved and pulsed, changing shape from moment to moment. “But if this all goes well, there’s no reason we couldn’t do it again.”

“Again?” Barry closed his eyes. The thought surprisingly didn’t seem crazy at all. The pregnancy hormones were really doing a number on his brain. “You know, I thought Iris and Eddie would have a ton of really amazingly pretty babies. But they’re focusing on their careers for now, while I might be giving Joe a whole brood of grandkids.”

“Good point. I’d better make sure Iris and Eddie have a baby immediately, otherwise I’ll be erased from existence and the city just might be consumed by another paradox singularity.”

“You’re such a romantic.”

Not having to go through labor meant that giving birth was nothing like Barry was used to seeing on TV. Although probably it never was, anyway. “Ohhh, this is _weird_ …” he said, lying back on the medical bed in the Cortex. Everyone but Eo, Caitlin, and Henry had been banished to wait in the next room. “Just checking – have any of you actually delivered babies before?”

“In simulations,” Eo said.

Caitlin shrugged. “Sure, I did a rotation.”

“Hundreds of times, Bar. Relax.” Henry patted his knee.

This time the procedure wasn’t at superspeed, and there was still no anesthetic. Barry almost broke Eo’s hand with the pain and the need to _not_ vibrate and _not_ pass out and _not_ just speed out of there like every instinct was telling him to do.

“Everything’s okay,” Eo told him, a cool hand on his sweaty, hot, tearful face. “Just a few more moments.”

“Well,” Henry said, “I’d say we’ve got a first-rate human on our hands here, boys.” And the baby started crying.

Despite the pain, Barry’s heaving breaths stopped, his eyes widened. “Oh wow. Is that…? She really came from inside me?”

“She really did,” Caitlin beamed. “She’s so beautiful, Barry.”

She looked so tiny in Eo’s arms once the cord was cut, such a small, vulnerable little creature that had somehow come from the two of them. “Oh wow,” Barry said again, touching the baby’s cheek just as Eo’s tears dropped onto his shoulder. “We’ve got a little girl, Eo.”

For a baby that had just come out of a dude, made from the DNA of two speedsters, the baby seemed weirdly normal, Cisco pointed out. It was as if he was waiting for the kid to suddenly cause a sonic boom right there in the Cortex. But she took the bottle Eo gave her very calmly, big blue eyes blinking as though she wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about.

Once Barry had been stitched up, he’d started to heal right away, but he was still sore, and Eo had threatened to sit on him if he tried to get off the bed. It had been a fight just to get some sweatpants.

“So do you guys have a name already?” Cisco asked. “Because I’ve got a few ideas…”

A name. The surname might be a problem when they had to fill out paperwork and declare her actual existence, given that Eobard was still officially Harrison Wells. But they’d figured out the first part a long time ago. “Eve,” Eo said. “It was my- It was Harrison Wells’ mother’s name.”

“And she’s our new beginning,” Barry added. “Even if we didn’t make her from anyone’s rib.”

Barry slept for a long, long, _long_ time when they went back home, Eo rubbing his back, baby Eve settled down in the crib in their bedroom. When he finally woke up in an empty room, the C-section scar was almost gone, although his belly hadn’t miraculously snapped back into its pre-pregnancy form overnight. He lay there for a moment, palm against his stomach, feeling strangely empty for the first time in six months. Maybe he was just hungry. He eased on his sweatpants. “Eo?”

Eobard was flipping news channels in the lounge, a tiny child snoozing on his bare chest. “Funny,” he said. “No reports of the Flash giving birth.”

Barry sat down beside him, laying a gentle hand on their daughter before kissing him, and then again, longer and deeper. The kind of kiss that would have very much invited Eo to push him back and take him right there if it wasn’t for the new addition to their family.

“Tease,” Eo said, putting an arm around Barry as he stroked the back of his finger down the baby’s head. “She almost screamed the house down an hour ago. Which, given what Hartley once did to my ceiling, was far from optimal. You slept right through it, of course.”

“I’m good at that.” Barry yawned. “I hope she got my sleeping genes along with your eyes.” He prodded his still-swollen stomach. “Think my suit will fit yet?”

“No. And Caitlin will kill both of us if you try to do anything heroic today.”

Eve shifted and snuffled against Eo’s chest. In a whoosh, Barry had grabbed his phone and taken a photo of the three of them. “Okay,” he said, examining the results. “First family portrait.”

“We’ll have to introduce her to her brother sometime.”

Her brother. In other words, the giant sewer-dwelling psychic gorilla who called Eo “Father” and had once tried to kill Barry with a train. “Yeah…” Barry said. “Just not right now, okay?” The nursery was home to a pretty large plush gorilla already, which was probably more than enough for a newborn to handle. Maybe Grodd should just start following S.T.A.R. Labs on Instagram.

His phone was overflowing with messages: Iris asking when she could come over, Caitlin demanding that he STAY IN BED, and… how had the Snarts got his number? Probably the Trickster would be sending them flowers next.

“She’ll want breakfast when she wakes up,” Eo said. “I hope she doesn’t have our appetites, or we’ll never be done.”

Barry scratched absently at his chest. Which _had_ , he thought, mostly returned to its former smooth, muscled state already. “I kind of wish, you know, that I could…” He’d worried too much about being feminized before. Now it might be nice to simply snuggle up with Eo and let the baby nurse.

Eo was getting that thoughtful look. “Well,” he said. “I’m sure it’s possible. We’ll figure something out for next time.”

Next time. There were still so many things to figure out just for this time. Let the world know the baby existed, for one thing. Balance saving the city with bottle-feeding and diaper changes. Try to live up to the parenting standards set by Henry and Joe. Not let Eo panic too much about being a horrible role model. Get back to work eventually.

First things first.

“So… Big Belly Burger for breakfast?” he said to Eo.

“Oh _yes_ ,” Eo said. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Really, Barry reflected as he sped off, it had never been more appropriate.


End file.
